Collegiate School

Collegiate School is a private school for boys in New York City. It claims to be the oldest school in the United States. It is located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and is a member of both the New York Interschool and the Ivy Preparatory School League. In 2020–2021, tuition fees totaled $55,900 per year. History Collegiate was chartered as part of the Reformed Dutch Protestant Church in the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam in 1628 by the Dutch West India Company and the Classis of Amsterdam. Its initial incarnation was a co-ed school located south of Canal Street. The institution's location has changed seventeen times over the last four centuries. Founding date controversy In 1984, Massimo Maglione, a historian and Upper School teacher at Collegiate, discovered a letter that Collegiate's founder—the Reverend Jonas Michaëlius, the first minister of the Dutch Reformed Church in America—had written in 1628 about his efforts to teach the catechism to Indian children. Based on this letter, the school controversially moved up the year of its establishment to 1628. While Reverend Jonas Michaëlius did arrive in New Amsterdam in 1628 and may have worked as an educator at that time, Collegiate School was not chartered until 1638. Location On February 5, 2013, the Collegiate School board announced plans to move the school to a new facility in New York's Riverside South neighborhood, between West End Avenue and Riverside Boulevard and between West 61st and 62nd Streets. Board Chairman George R. Bason, Jr. '72 said the new 178,000-square-foot school would provide 30% more indoor space and more than six times more outdoor space (16,268 square feet) for its 648 students from kindergarten through 12th grade than the existing lodgings provided. He estimated the new school's construction cost at $125–$135 million. On January 12, 2018, Collegiate officially opened its new location at 301 Freedom Place South.